by Reid, Penny
What. The. Hell…?
Somewhat grudgingly rooted in place, uncertain whether I wanted to push the issue by hall heckling her or just simply mope somberly, I watched her retreating form as she left; her steps hurried, her pace almost road-runner frantic. Then, shaking myself, I eye-rolled all the way into my office and heaved a gigantic sigh; my earlier uneasiness had been replaced—or, more accurately, substituted—with immense irritation.
I approached my desk and glanced at its contents; all the papers and folders were neatly stacked into piles, just as I’d left them yesterday. I checked the drawers and found that they were still locked. My desktop PC was also locked. If she’d been looking for something in particular, I could see no outward sign that anything had been rummaged or disturbed.
The tightness in my chest constricted, and was now vacillating between annoyance and anxiety. I fell into my office chair. I attempted to clear my mind by staring out the window, and for a few moments, I allowed myself to drift on white, puffy clouds visible in the distance.
For the first time in recent memory, I successfully endeavored to sit and be still, and to think about nothing at all. I gazed at the sky until my eyes felt dry.
At some indeterminable time later, the sound of laughter and normal office conversation pulled me out of my trance. I blinked, rubbed my closed lids, and decided to make an honorable attempt at getting work done. I didn’t think about carpet, or Quinn, or Jem, or Olivia. Instead, I clung to the impersonal numbness of my task list.
Thus, ignoring the stack of memos and printed reports on my desk, I lost myself in spreadsheets and glorious pivot tables, and to requirements, documents, and billing-software workflows. The tension around my lungs eased with every passing hour, with deeper immersion into numbers and Visio swim lane charts.
The sound of my office door closing abruptly brought my attention back to the present and to the man who’d just entered.
I blinked. I gaped. I stood.
Simmering warmth slid from my stomach to the tips of my ears, inexplicably relaxing any remaining tightness in my chest like a salve as I registered that Quinn was standing in front of the closed door. He was smiling in that odd, quiet way of his, not with any perceivable curve of his mouth but rather with a subtle glint in his eyes and a lift of his chin.
My very obvious grin at his presence couldn’t be helped any more than I could catch those errant teeth in my dream. I loved that he was wearing faded blue jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. He hadn’t shaved since I’d last seen him.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I auto-responded; spreadsheets and pivot tables immediately forgotten.
He crossed to me and gave me a quick, soft kiss before I could discern or properly appreciate his intention. Immediately he straightened and held a paper bag between us. It was yellow and grease-stained; black writing spelled out Al’s Beef.
“I have Italian beef and French fries.”
I pulled my attention from the bag and met his narrowed blue gaze. Again, a sincere automatic smile further opened my features to him. “You brought me Al’s Beef for breakfast?”
His lips pulled to the side, his eyes moving between mine, and he turned his head just slightly. “No, I brought you lunch. It’s almost three.”
My mouth opened and I glanced at the watch on my wrist. It was, indeed, almost 3:00 p.m.
“Oh my gosh.”
Quinn placed the bag of food on the desk and started distributing its contents: sandwich and fries for me; sandwich and fries for him. He even pulled out two green food baskets, presumably so that we could enjoy an authentic Al’s Beef dine-in experience within the comfort of my office.
“Sit.” He motioned to my chair as he claimed the seat on the other side of my desk.
I obeyed, but I didn’t unwrap my food immediately; instead, I opted to watch him until my stomach grumbled, demanding my attention. It presumably just now realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. The smell of fries and roast beef made my mouth water.
Mimicking his movements, I dumped my fries into the basket and pulled the paper away from the Italian beef, revealing a deliciously soggy sandwich. He was already eating, the sandwich disappearing by fourths with each bite. He seemed so completely at ease, as though his appearance at the office and bringing me lunch was an everyday occurrence—as though it was expected.
Closing the door for privacy, sneaking a swift kiss, bringing lunch to eat together; people who were dating did these things. I knew this. I used to date someone. But with Quinn, everything felt meaningful in a way it never had with Jon.
I picked up my sandwich and lifted it to my mouth but didn’t take a bite.
I was too busy noticing things about him that I couldn’t recall caring to notice about anyone else. I was acutely aware of Quinn’s movements; of the placement of his hands on the sandwich; his nonchalant, carefree mood; how he was dressed and the amount of skin he’d left exposed; the length of his hair. The number of details felt overwhelming, but I was greedy for specifics, greedy to know and memorize everything about him.
I felt like a kettle set to boil; any minute I was going to steam up from all the details and start screaming.
I blurted, “I’m not really sure how to do this.” I abruptly dropped the sandwich into the basket and leaned backward in my chair.
Quinn waited until he finished chewing to respond; his eyes moved from me to the sandwich. “Do what?”
“Be the girl you’re dating.”
His mouth curved upward in a trace of a smile. “Do you want a handbook for that too? Because I’d like to be involved in sketching the diagrams if you do.”
I pressed my lips together and pummeled him with a single French fry. He laughed, obviously unable to contain himself, and my face flamed.
“You know what I mean.” I didn’t look at him; rather, I stared at my basket of Italian beef and seasoned fries.
He stopped laughing but not all at once; he allowed it to taper off gradually. I glanced at him through my eyelashes; a huge smile still asserted itself over his features, and he was looking at me with a sanguine, untroubled expression.
He looked happy.
My heart fluttered; yes, it fluttered uncontrollably. The flutter morphed into a flapping monsoon as I watched his smile fade from broad to slight and his gaze darken, intensify, and scorch.
“You’re so beautiful.” It was said on a sigh, as though he had said and thought the sentiment at the same time and hadn’t quite realized the words had been spoken aloud.
I felt the compliment acutely, but in a slightly scary and thrilling way. I lifted my head and blinked at him, my mouth slightly agape. His eyes traveled over my lips, hair, neck, then lower. I noticed he was holding his napkin as though someone might be inclined to steal it.
He also seemed to be greedy for details.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and rubbed my neck. Everywhere his eyes moved itched and tingled.
I cleared my throat. “You too.”
He met my gaze and studied me; his smile was still slight. “It’s different with you; it’s not just the way you look.”
In a surprising turn of events, the comment on my inner beauty made me squirm to a much greater degree than the compliment aimed at my physical features. I wasn’t so sure that inner Janie was at all a beautiful person. Jem’s words from last night; the apparent callous disinterestedness with which I regarded the end of my relationship with Jon, my unwillingness to help my sister in her time of need, had me doubting whether I was anything other than a selfish and vapid replica of my mother.
“Are you admitting your beauty is only skin deep?” I tilted my head to the side, wanting to tease him rather than dwell on how high, on a scale from one to ten, I would rank on the vapid meter.
Quinn breathed in through his nose, his eyebrows lifted, and his attention shifted to his hands; he loosened his grip on the napkin and began twisting it between his thumb and forefinger.
He didn’t respond. I too
k his silence as confirmation.
“I think you’re wrong.”
He continued to twist the napkin wordlessly until it resembled a short length of rope.
I considered him at length. There was still a lot I didn’t know about Quinn, and therefore, I deliberated the possibility that he was right. He could be a virtually empty shell of a person with a stunning façade, impressive intellect, and a foil wit.
Then, I frowned because the prospect felt dissonant with reality.
“No, you are a good guy.” I tilted my head to the side and allowed my gaze to move over his lips, hair, neck, then lower to where his heart was beating. “We see the strengths and faults in others that we do not or cannot recognize in ourselves.”
“Janie.” His small smile, more of a grimace, struck me as brittle when our eyes finally met.
“Are you trying to scare me off?”
He nodded his head, but on a sigh, he replied, “No.”
“Do you have any current nefarious plans? Are you plying me with Italian beef as part of an evil plot?” I motioned between us and asked, “Is this an elaborate lie? Are you planning to lure me into a false sense of security, have your way with me, light me up, and then toss me aside like a match or a Christmas tree?”
His face was serious. “No.”
“Then why do you believe that you lack internal beauty?”
“Because I only do things for selfish reasons.”
“Like dating me?”
“Dating you is completely selfish.”
The comment struck me mute, but I recovered. “If…if you were being selfish, then you’d still be a Wendell and I’d be a slamp.”
He shook his head. “If you were a slamp, then we wouldn’t be exclusive, and you could be with other people.”
“And that makes you selfish?”
“That makes me selfish.” His eyes pierced me, and his voice was low and sandpapery.
I took the opportunity to munch on a French fry, now cold, and deliberated his words.
“I will say this.” Quinn held me with his eyes, his expression increasing in severity as though hovering on the precipice of a meaningful confession. “You make me want to be less of an asshole.”
My lashes flapped at him. “Really? Wow.” I gulped.
It was a confession of sorts, but it was the type of confession that encouraged my sarcasm rather than my appreciation. The statement struck me as the epitome of noncommittal, pseudo-subtle, self-deprecation; I was amazed by its definitive tepidness.
“That’s so poetic. You should write greeting cards: Dear Dad, thank you for helping me become not as big of a jerk as you are. I’m still a jerk, just not a big jerk like you.”
Quinn laughed again, but this time with complete abandon; it was a deep, rumbly belly laugh, which, since I was within earshot of the blast radius, was extremely infectious, and I felt it acutely like a touch rather than a sound. He held his hand over his chest and my attention loitered on the spot. Even as I laughed I felt a twist of discomfort emanating from a mirrored location in my own chest.
I ached. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to know everything about him.
The suddenness of the pain caught me by surprise, and I closed my eyes against it, breathing out slowly, collecting myself so I wouldn’t give in to my desire to climb over the desk and tackle him where he sat, Italian beef sandwich on his lap, napkin in his hand.
“Janie.”
My eyes remained closed but I gave him a slight, evasive, closed mouth smile.
“What are you thinking?”
I swallowed but didn’t answer. My heart was racing. I wanted to tell him I was thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet, but that would have been a lie. Even if I wanted to, and I did want to, I couldn’t seem to distract myself from the reality of being with him and all the irrepressible terror and hunger that accompanied it.
“Why are you so afraid?”
“Because I’m not thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet.” My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity. I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth. “It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present.”
His answering smile was leisurely and measured. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
I returned his smile even though I felt suddenly sober; my eyes were inexplicably watery. “Quinn…” I took a deep, steadying breath. “Quinn, you need to be a good guy. I need you to be a good guy.”
He nodded, his expression reacting to and echoing my sudden seriousness. “I know. I want to be.” Quinn licked his lips as his eyes moved to my mouth. “I will be for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We left work shortly after 4:00 p.m.—together.
Quinn reached for and grabbed my hand. He flashed me a smile and gently held it as we walked down the hallway past a gaping Keira and onto the elevator within plain view of the security desk and its inhabitants, then straight to the lobby. As we walked, fingers threaded together, Quinn caressed the wrinkles of my knuckles with the pad of his thumb and spoke of the dilemma with the corporate client in Las Vegas.
At first, I was fairly preoccupied by our public display of physical contact and managed only single-syllable responses. However, once we were settled in a large black limo, I tried to focus on his words rather than the predictably astonished glances from my coworkers.
But then we sat close together on the bench seat; he lifted my legs so that they were positioned across his, and he fiddled distractedly with my collar, his eyes on the buttons of my business shirt.
I was watching his lips as he spoke. I tried to find my place in the conversation, but the way he looked at me, the closeness of him, the feel of his hands—one on my thigh, one brushing against my neck—made me feel fuzzy-headed and unfocused.
“Janie?”
I blinked, saw his mouth form my name before I heard the word. My eyes widened then met his.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you…did you hear what I said?”
“No,” I answered truthfully, my attention moving to his mouth again, which, at the moment, was an attention-hogging lodestone.
Quinn squeezed my leg. “Am I boring you?”
“No.” I sighed, allowed my head to rest against his arm behind me, still focused on the bottom half of his face. “I was just thinking about your mouth.”
He licked his lips and, to my surprise, his neck and cheeks tinted slightly hot. “What were you thinking about my mouth?”
“I like it.”
“What do you like about it?”
Without hesitating, I responded, “Everything: the shape of it, how big your lips are, your tubercle, the curve of your philtrum. Did you know that in traditional Chinese medicine, the shape and color of the philtrum, also called the medial cleft, is supposed to be have direct correlation to the health of a person’s reproductive system?”
I noticed his eyes flicker to the space between my nose and mouth, seemingly without his expressed consent, and then quickly back to my eyes. “How about that.”
I nodded. “There are a lot of fascinating and unusual studies out there that link the shape of a person’s mouth to other parts of the human anatomy and its abilities or proclivities.”
I noticed his breathing had changed. He swallowed. “Like what?”
I traced my finger over the top of his lip, enjoying the fact that I was actually using my knowledge of random facts as some sort of brainy, academic foreplay, and that Quinn seemed to like it and respond to it.
“Like the Cupid’s bow, the double curve of the upper lip. A study out of Scotland reported that women with a prominent cupid’s bow are more likely to experience orgasm during sex.”
&nb
sp; Quinn’s attention once again affixed to my lips and then he promptly groaned. “You shouldn’t say things like that when I can’t do anything about it.”
I enjoyed the tortured sound he made and once again met his gaze, which had darkened considerably.
I tried to keep my face straight.
“Then there is the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic musculature of the tongue.”
“You need to stop talking.” Quinn grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, claiming my mouth with his, and ending my involuntary bubble of laughter.
When he lifted his mouth, I whispered, “Most of the tongue’s blood supply comes from the lingual artery.”
He kissed me again and again.
If I’d been listening to our ensuing kiss-sloppy conversation, been an observer rather than a participant, I might have rolled my eyes in judgmental exasperation. Admittedly, it was improbable that peer-reviewed medical research citations and correlative studies of human anatomy could get a person, let alone two people, hot and bothered. But there we were, pawing each other with mounting urgency as I recounted theories linking the amount of hair on earlobes and genital arousal.
By the time the limo stopped, we were half dressed, and the buttons of my shirt were scattered all over the floor. Naturally, Quinn had ripped the shirt open with a growl when I mentioned mammary glands.
I frantically pulled away and grasped the useless edges of my shirt. “Oh shit!”
Quinn was still somewhat lost in a fog of lust and moved his hand further up my inner thigh, his mouth seeking mine again. I swatted him away despite the fact that everywhere he touched me protested in delicious agony. Nonsensically, I tried to smooth my hair, tsking when my shirt opened again.
“What am I going to do?”
Quinn, finally drawing away from me, pulled a sweater over his bare chest with not a trace of hurry. He lifted a single eyebrow as he adjusted his pants and zipped his fly. The sound made my back stiffen, and I realized how close we’d just been to copulating in the back of a car.
